The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-07-10
SUMNER GOSSIP.
When WomenIReach Their Prime-Childhood
and Dress-At the Summer Resorts.
The Age of Women.

The Age of Women.
Special to the Indianapolis journal
New YORK, July 9.-The age Of women is
what they call this last quarter of the nineteenth
century sometimes OF certainty whatever
else it may may not be. nobody could pro-
nounee it the age of the girl. The girl has had
her day A long day it was. and sunny one,
but she does not seem at present likely to get
another.
No change wrought in the last hundred years
Is more marked than the steady advance in the
period of life at which the feminine part OF hui
manity is thought to reach its prime. When the
novel originated its first heroine was the four
teen-year-old Richardson's Pamelas, Clarissas
and their kin might better be thirteen than very
many years above it Sweet sixteen and bloom
ing seventeen reigned in the pages OF Irving and
Cooper, dominating the sentiment or naif TO q
third of century ago. Twenty, twenty-one ana
twenty-five we're the next favorites springing up
with the women's colleges as the better educa-
ton of girls kept them in the schoolroom and out
of society longer. while tho mature woman OF
twenty seven or thirty three quite as frequently
nowadays finds herself brought to the fore in the
modern novel which is fairly truthful reflex OF
the civilization it tries to represent.
History and society chronicles tel: the same
tale as the novel. When the French Revolution
was Matching the wild savings and gay doings OF
Marie Antoinette fed the discontent, and yet she
whom the folk of Paris judged so harshly and
took SO seriously was girl OF fourteen wnen she
was taken out Of the nursery and lifted to the
throne. Benedics Arnods wife was under
twenty when bis disgrace bowed her to the
ground, and pretty Dolly Payne. before sne De,
came Dolly Madison, at twenty four, mao oeen
Quaker belle, had kept house as Mrs. John 100.
had sorrowed as a widow and bioomeo OUT
through several years of belledom again. Our
granddames, not SO many generations removed,
on whom we look back with the awe and reverence
that hedge an ancestor, were very youthful dlg-
nitaries indeed when they took the Responsible
tiles Of life upon them. As the boy went to col
iege at fourteen the girl took her place In So
ciety, married at sixteen. had brood OF chill
dren while yet under age, and was reiegateo TO
knitting work and caps while hardly mature.
ending all active career under forty. al an age
when the modern woman feels that she Is just
coming to the full command of her powers.
From being passee at twenty to beng charm
ing at thirty tells in itself the whole tale OF
wcman's growth for the past century. That Pc
culiar combination of angel and idiot which was
the ideal woman was unthinkable except In the
teens. Idiocy cannot be angelic after the first
score of years. Tho rosebud is delightful and
everybody loves it. bnt the-e IS not woman
left who would care to be always eighteen. Up
to thirty five woman is not now AT all abashed
at owning her age. She knows she has but
gained in charm; she knows thai tbs man who
fought shy of taking her out to dinner during
her first season, and who was mute and bored
during the whole time that he sat by her side.
will seek her out in company now. and will rec
giving her credit for common sense in the talk
that he begins with her. She knows that where
her crudeness used to drive off peopls worth
knowing, she can at her will call them about her
now.
Frau Won Stien was past thirty when she car
ried off Goethe captive after he had weathered the
dangers of the younger Lilis Charlcttes and the
rest. And in New York any of the country's
great centres to day it is not the younger women
whose position in the only society that is worth
the name is happiest or best established The
woman who marries is twenty-five when she
used to be fifteen. The woman who gathers
about her any circle that deserves the name of
salon is Mary L. Booth at fifty; Mrs Martha j.
Lamb. with the gray hairs coming, Mrs. Frank
Leslie; Jennie June. with a. third of century of
active work in the city b ind herr or at the
youngest, Miss Grace Fl. DSdee. the border
line of the thirties; women who are often better
looking and always better worth seeing than
when they were younger. It is tribute to the
common sense Of the day that things Should be
as they The world will always feehand ac-
girls fresh charm. There is moth
ing else quite like It. But the mature woman,
whose face has thought and knowledge in it. is
the woman who is crowned Queen after ALL
ELIZA T. HEAToN.